 In anthropology, describing the rules of use for metapragmatic speech (in the same way that a grammar would describe the rules of use for 'ordinary' or semantic speech) is important because it can aid the understanding and analysis of a culture's language ideology.Silverstein has also described universal limits on metapragmatic awareness that help explain why some linguistic forms seem to be available to their users for conscious comment, while other forms seem to escape awareness despite efforts by a researcher to ask native speakers to repeat them or characterize their use.Self-referential, or reflexive, metapragmatic statements are indexical.